50 Miles Along the Cotswold Way

Day 1- Chipping Campden to Hailes (16 Miles)

I’d stayed in Stratford-upon-Avon last night, in a hostel, worrying about this morning. The hour it had taken me to walk between the center of town and the hostel has pulled something in my back. Such a wimp so early in the walk. Then next day I wondered back into town, caught a bus and made my way to Chipping Campden and the start of the Cotswold Way.
I passed through Chipping Campden quickly, patting the sign on the Town Hall which marks the beginning or the end of the hike. The town is dates back to the 14th 15th Century, the home of the successful wool merchant William Grevel. Rather fitting for me, an artist, that I set off from a town where Arts and Crafts helped save this town from decline after years of agricultural doldrums.The gravel path rises up into the hills, past a farm or two and towards Dover’s Hillat 225 Meters.
The land here seems straight from Milton’s Jerusalem Hymn by William Blake:

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

 Approaching Broadway Tower

  The climb, quite gentle in nature, takes you up to Broadway Tower, a very fine looking building from 1799 for Lady Coventry by the 6th Earl of Coventry. Its on Beacon Hill 312 Miles above sea level and the second highest point on the Cotswold Way. Its then straight down over farm fields to Broadway. Broadway is a lovely town, bustling with people and little privately owned cafes. I stopped and bought myself an orange, found a bench and stopped for lunch. A perched pigeon promptly pooed on my brand new shorts on the branch above.

 

  I met another hiker later on that day and attempting to match his pace we walked together the rest of the way indulging in a quite wonderfully nerdy debate on equipment, walking boots and other walks we’d been on. I know no other hikers and been able to go on like this was quite a treat. He was a much more experienced hiker, on his way to completing all the national trails in England. Not that I’d confess it out loud but I was walking faster than I had before and I felt it the next day. I got into camp so much earlier though and lay around reading and eating grapes that I’d bought from farm shop, resting my limbs and enjoying the unexpected warm of the Spring sun.